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Jmld life in japan 

BY 
MRS..M. CHAPLIN AYRTON 

EdHed by 
VBLLIAM ELLIOT GRIFF15 





Class _i, vr^ uA^ c- ) 
Book_J^ ^ 



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The Lion of Korea. 



CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN 



AHU 



JAPANESE CHILD STORIES 



BY 



MRS. M. CHAPLIN AYRTON 

II 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, L.H.D. 

Author of "The Mikado's Empire" and "Japanese Fairy World" 



IV/TH MANY fLLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING SEVEN FULL 

PAGE PICTURES DRAWN AND ENGRAVED 

BY JAPANESE ARTISTS 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



DSsas 
,A37 



Copyright, 1901, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 
1 D 2 






ts-xiJr tik'r^) 



PREFACE. 

Over a quarter of a century ago, while engaged in 
introducing the American public school system into 
Japan, I became acquainted in Tokio with Mrs. Matilda 
Chaplin Ayrton, the author of '' Child-Life in Japan." 
This highly accomplished lady was a graduate of Edin- 
burgh University, and had obtained the degrees of 
Bachelor of Letters and Bachelor of Sciences, besides 
studying medicine in Paris. She had married Professor 
William Edward Ayrton, the electric engineer and in- 
ventor, then connected with the Imperial College of 
Engineering of Japan, and since president of the Insti- 
tute of Electric Engineers in London. She took a keen 
interest in the Japanese people and never wearied of 
studying them and their beautiful country. With my 
sister, she made excursions to some of the many famous 
places in the wonderful city of Tokio. When her own 
little daughter, born among the camellias and chrysan- 
themums, grew up under her Japanese nurse, Mrs. 
Ayrton became more and more interested in the home 
life of the Japanese and in the pictures and stories 
which delighted the children of the Mikado's Empire. 
After her return to England, in 1879, she wrote this 
book. 

In the original work, the money and distances, the 
comparisons and illustrations, were naturally English, 
and not American. For this reason, I have ventured 



vi Preface. 

to alter the text slightly here and there, that the Ameri- 
can child reader may more clearly catch the drift of 
the thought, have given to each Japanese word the 
standard spelling now preferred by scholars and omitted 
statements of fact which were once, but are no longer, 
true. I have also translated or omitted hard Japanese 
words, shortened long sentences, rearranged the illus- 
trations, and added notes which will make the subject 
clearer. Although railways, telegraphs, and steamships, 
clothes and architecture, schools and customs, patterned 
more or less closely after those in fashion in America 
and Europe, have altered many things in Japan and 
caused others to disappear, yet the children's world of 
toys and games and stories does not change very fast. 
In the main, it may be said, we have here a true picture 
of the old Japan which we all delighted in seeing, when, 
in those sunny days, we lived in sight of Yedo Bay and 
Fuji Yama, with Japanese boys and girls all around us. 
The best portions and all the pictures of Mrs. Ayr- 
ton's big and costly book have been retained and repro- 
duced, including her own preface or introduction, and 
the book is again set forth with a hearty " ohio " (good 
morning) of salutation and sincere *'omedeto" (congratu- 
lations) that the nations of the world are rapidly becom- 
ing one family. May every reader of " Child-Life in 
Japan" see, sometime during the twentieth century, the 
country and the people of whom Mrs. Ayrton has writ- 
ten with such lively spirit and such warm appreciation. 

WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS. 
Ithaca, N.Y. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Preface by William Elliot Griffis ...,,, v 

Introduction by the Author ....,., xi 

Seven Scenes of Child-Life in Japan i 

First Month i6 

The Chrysanthemum Show 30 

FiSHSAVE 34 

The Filial Girl 37 

T'he Parsley Queen 38 

Th£ Two Daughters 40 

Second Sight 44 

Gamjis 46 

The Games and Sports of Japanese Children, by William 

Elliot Griffis 50 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The Lion of Korea Frontispiece 

PAGE 

A Ride on a Bamboo Rail i 

A Game of Snowball 3 

Boys' Concert — Flute, Drum, and Song 5 

Lion Play ,.6 

Ironclad Top Game , . 7 

Playing with Doggy 9 

Heron-Legs, or Stilts 1 1 

The Young Wrestlers 13 

Playing with the Turtle • ^5 

Presenting the Tide- Jewels to Ilachiman . . . . . .18 

*" Bronze fishes sitting on their throats " . . . . . .19 

The Treasure-Ship .......... 23 

Girls' Ball and Counting Game . 26 

Firemen's Gymnastics ......... ?K 

Street Tumblers . . 29 

Eating Stand for the Children 31 

Fishsave riding the Dolphin 35 

Bowing before her Mother's Mirror 37 

Imitating the Procession ......... 39 

The Two White Birds 41 

Eye-Hiding, or Blindman's Buff 47 

Stilts and Clog-Throwing 48 

Playing at Batter-Cakes 49 

Hoisting the Rice-Beer Keg . . . . . . • • 5^ 

Getting ready to raise the Big Humming Kite ..... 60 

Daruma, the Snow-Image 62 

ix 



INTRODUCTION 

In almost every home are Japanese fans, in our 
shops Japanese dolls and balls and other knick- 
knacks, on our writing-tables bronze crabs or lac- 
quered pen-tray with outlined on it the extinct 
volcano [Fuji San] that is the most striking 
mountain seen from the capital of Japan. At 
many places of amusement Japanese houses of 
real size have been exhibited, and the jargon of 
fashion for " Japanese Art " even reaches our 
children's ears. 

Yet all these things seem dull and lifeless when 
thus severed from the quaint cheeriness of their 
true home. To those familiar with Japan, that 
bamboo fan-handle recalls its graceful grassy tree, 
the thousand and one daily purposes for which 
bamboo wood serves. We see the open shop 
where squat the brown-faced artisans cleverly 
dividing into those slender divisions the fan- 

Fiiji Sail, or Fuji no Yama, the highest mountain in the Japanese 
archipelago, is in the province of Suruga, sixty miles west of Tokio. 
Its crest is covered with snow most of the year. Twenty thousand 
pilgrims visit it annually. Its name may mean Not Two (such), or 
Peerless. 

xi 



xil Introduction. 

handle, the wood-block engraver's where some 
dozen men sit patiently chipping at their cherry- 
wood blocks, and the printer's where the coloring 
arrangements seem so simple to those used to 
western machinery, but where the colors are so 
rich and true. We see the picture stuck on the 
fan frame with starch paste, and drying in the 
brilliant summer sunlight. The designs recall 
vividly the life around, whether that life be the 
stage, the home, insects, birds, or flowers. We 
think of halts at wayside inns, when bowing tea- 
house girls at once proffer these fans to hot and 
tired guests. 

The tonsured oblique-eyed doll suggests the 
festival of similarly oblique-eyed little girls on the 
3d of March. Then dolls of every degree obtain 
for a day " Dolls' Rights." In every Japanese 
household all the dolls of the present and previ- 
ous generations are, on that festival, set out to 
best advantage. Beside them are sweets, green- 
speckled rice cake, and daintily gilt and lacquered 
dolls' utensils. For some time previous, to meet 
the increased demand, the doll shopman has been 
very busy. He sits before a straw-holder into 
which he can readily stick, to dry, the wooden 
supports of the plaster dolls' heads he is painting, 
as he takes first one and then another to give 
artistic touches to their glowing cheeks or little 
tongue. That dolly that seems but " so odd " to 



Introduction. xiii 

Polly or Maggie is there the cherished darling of 
its little owner. It passes half its day tied on to 
her back, peeping companionably its head over 
her shoulder. At night it is lovingly sheltered 
under the green mosquito curtains, and provided 
with a toy wooden pillow. 

The expression " Japanese Art " seems but a 
created word expressing either the imitations of it, 
or the artificial transplanting of Japanese things 
to our houses. The whole glory of art in Japan 
is, that It is not Art, but Nature simply rendered, 
by a people with a fancy and love of fun quite 
Irish in character. Just as Greek sculptures 
were good, because in those days artists modelled 
the corsetless life around them, so the Japanese 
artist does not draw well his lightly draped fig- 
ures, cranes, and insects because these things 
strike him as beautiful, but because he is familiar 
with their every action. 

The Japanese house out of Japan seems but a 
dull and listless affair. We miss the idle, easy- 
going life and chatter, the tea, the sweetmeats, 
the pipes and charcoal brazier, the clogs awaiting 
their wearers on the large flat stone at the entry, 
the grotesquely trained ferns, the glass balls and 
ornaments tinkling in the breeze, that hang, as 
well as lanterns, from the eaves, the garden with 
tiny pond and goldfish, bridge and miniature hill, 
the bright sunshine beyond the sharp shadow ot 



xiv Introduction. 

the upward curving angles of the tiled roof, the 
gay, scarlet folds of the women's under-dress 
peeping out, their little litter of embroidery or 
mending, and the babies, brown and half naked, 
scrambling about so happily. For, what has a 
baby to be miserable about in a land where it is 
scarcely ever slapped, where its clothing, always 
loose, is yet warm in winter, where it basks freely 
in air and sunshine ? It lives in a house, that 
from its thick grass mats, its absence of furniture, 
and therefore of commands " not to touch," is the 
very beau-ideal of an infant's playground. 

The object with which the following pages 
were written, was that young folks who see and 
handle so often Japanese objects, but who find 
books of travels thither too long and dull for their 
reading, might catch a glimpse of the spirit that 
pervades life in the " Land of the Rising Sun." 
A portion of the book is derived from translations 
from Japanese tales, kindly given to the author 
by Mr. Basil H. Chamberlain, whilst the rest was 
written at idle moments during graver studies. 

The games and sports of Japanese children 
have been so well described by Professor Griffis, 
that we give, as an Appendix, his account of their 
doings. 



Child-Life in Japan. 



SEVEN SCENES OF CHILD-LIFE IN 
JAPAN. 

HESE little boys all live a long 
way off in islands called 
" Japan." They have all rather 
brown chubby faces, and they 
are very merry. Unless they 
give themselves a really hard 
knock they seldom get cross or 
cry. 

In the second large picture 
two of the little boys are play- 
ing at snowball. Although it 
may be hotter in the summer 
in their country than it is here, the winter is as 
cold as you feel it. Like our own boys, these lads 
enjoy a fall of snow, and still better than snowball- 
ing they like making a snowman with a charcoal 
ball for each eye and a streak of charcoal for his 
mouth. The shoes which they usually wear out 
of doors are better for a snowy day than your 
boots, for their feet do not sink into the snow, 




A. Ride on a Bamboo 
Rail. 



2 Child-Life in Japan. 

unless it is deep. These shoes are of wood, and 
make a boy seem to be about three inches taller 
than he really is. The shoe, you see, has not laces 
or buttons, but is kept on the foot by that thong 
which passes between the first and second toe. 
The thong is made of grass, and covered with 
strong paper, or with white or colored calico. 
The boy in the check dress wears his shoes with- 
out socks, but you see the other boy has socks on. 
His socks are made of dark blue calico, with a 
thickly woven sole, and a place, like one finger of 
a glove, for his big toe. If you were to wear Japa- 
nese shoes, you would think the thong between 
your toes very uncomfortable. Yet from their 
habit of wearing this sort of shoe, the big toe 
grows more separate from the other toes, and the 
skin between this and the next toe becomes as 
hard as the skin of a dog's or a cat's paw. 

The boys are not cold, for their cotton clothes, 
being wadded, are warm and snug. One boy has 
a rounded pouch fastened to his sash. It is red 
and prettily embroidered with flowers or birds, 
and is his purse, in which he keeps some little 
toys and some money. The other boy very likely 
has not a pouch, but he has two famous big 
pockets. Like all Japanese, he uses the part of 
his large sleeve which hangs down as his pocket. 
Thus when a group of little children are disturbed 
at play you see each little hand seize a treasured 




A Game of Snowball. 



4 Child-Life in Japan. 

toy and disappear into its sleeve, like mice running 
into their holes with bits of cheese. 

In the next large picture are two boys who are 
fond of music. One has a flute, w^hich is made 
of bamboo wood. These flutes are easy to make, 
as bamboo wood grows hollow, with cross divi- 
sions at intervals. If you cut a piece with a 
division forming one end you need only make the 
outside holes in order to finish your flute. 

The child sitting down 
has a drum. His drum 
and the paper lanterns 
hanging up have painted on 
them an ornament which 
is also the crest of the 
house of " Arima." If 
these boys belong to this 
family they wear the same 
crest embroidered on the centre of the backs of 
their coats. 

Korean Lion is the title of the picture which 
forms the frontispiece ; it represents a game 
that children in Japan are very fund of play- 
ing. They are probably trying to act as well 
as the maskers did whom they saw on New 




Arima was one of the daimios or landed noblemen, nearly three 
hundred in number, out of whom has been formed the new nobility 
of Japan, a certain number of which are in the Upper House of the 
Imperial Diet. 




Boys' Concert — Flute, Drum, and Song. 



6 Child-Life in Japan. 

Year's Day, just as our children try and imitate 
things they see in a pantomime. The masker goes 
from house to house accompanied by one or two 
men who play on cymbals, flute, and drum. He 
steps into a shop where the people of the house 
and their friends sit drinking tea, and passers-by 
pause in front of the open shop to see the fun. 
He takes a mask, like the one in the picture, off 
his back and puts it over his head. This boar's- 
head mask is painted scarlet and black, and gilt. 
It has a green cloth hanging down behind, in 
order that you may not perceive where the mask 
ends and the man's body begins. Then the 
masker imitates an animal. He goes up to a 
young lady and lays down his ugly head beside 
her to be patted, as " Beast " may have coaxed 

"Beauty" in the fairy 
tale. He grunts, and 
rolls, and scratches him- 
self. The children almost 
forget he is a man, and 
roar with laughter at 
kangura, or Korean Lion the funny animal. When 
^^^^' they begin to tire of this 

fun he exchanges this mask for some of the two 
or three others he carries with him. He puts 
on a mask of an old woman over his face, and 
at the back of his head a very different sec- 
ond mask, a cloth tied over the centre of the 





Ironclad Top Game. 



8 Child-Life in Japan. 

head, making the two faces yet more distinct from 
each other. He has quickly arranged the back 
of his dress to look Hke the front of a person, and 
he acts, first presenting the one person to his 
spectators, then the other. He makes you even 
imagine he has four arms, so cleverly can he twist 
round his arm and gracefully fan what is in reality 
the back of his head. 

The tops the lads are playing with in this pic- 
ture '^ are not quite the same shape as our tops, 
but they spin very well. Some men are so clever 
at making spinning-tops run along strings, throw- 
ing them up into the air and catching them with 
a tobacco-pipe, that they earn a living by exhibit- 
ing their skill. 

Some of the tops are formed of short pieces of 
bamboo with a wooden peg put through them, 
and the hole cut in the side makes them have 
a fine hum as the air rushes in whilst they 
spin. 

The boys in the next large picture (p. 9) must 
be playing with the puppies of a large dog, to 
judge from their big paws. There are a great 
many large dogs in the streets of Tokio ; some 
are very tame, and will let children comb their 
hair and ornament them and pull them about. 
These dogs do not wear collars, as do our pet 
dogs, but a wooden label bearing the owner's 

* Sc^ p^e 7. 




Playing with Doggy. 



lo Child-Life in Japan. 

name Is hung round their necks. Other big 
dogs are almost wild. 

Half-a-dozen of these dogs will lie in one place, 
stretched drowsily on the grassy city walls under 
the trees, during the daytime. Towards evening 
they rouse themselves and run off to yards ana 
rubbish-heaps to pick up what they can. They 
will eat fish, but two or three dogs soon get to 
know where the meat-eating Englishmen live. 
They come trotting in regularly with a business- 
like air to search among the day's refuse for 
bones. Should any interloping dog try to estab- 
lish a right to share the feast he can only gain 
his footing after a victorious battle. All these 
dogs are very wolfish-looking, with straight hair^ 
which is usually white or tan-colored. There 
are other pet dogs kept in houses. These look 
something like spaniels. They are small, with 
their black noses so much turned up that it 
seems as if, when they were puppies, they had 
tumbled down and broken the bridge of their 
nose. They are often ornamented like dog Toby 
in " Punch and Judy," with a ruff made of some 
scarlet stuff round their necks. 

After the heavy autumn rains have filled the 

Wild-dogs: ownerless dogs have now been exterminated, and 
every dog in Japan is owned, licensed, taxed, or else liable to go 
the way of the old wolfish-looking curs. The pet spaniel-like dogs 
are called chin. 




Heron-legs, or Stilts. 



12 Child-Life in Japan. 

roads with big puddles, it is great fun, this boy 
thinks, to walk about on stilts. You see him on 
page II. His stilts are of bamboo wood, and 
he calls them " Heron-legs," after the long-legged 
snowy herons ^hat strut about in the wet rice- 
fields. When he struts about on them, he 
wedges the upright between his big and second 
toe as if the stilt was like his shoes. He has a 
good view of his two friends who are wrestling, 
and probably making hideous noises like wild 
animals as they try to throw one another. They 
have seen fat public wrestlers stand on opposite 
sides of a sanded ring, stoop, rubbing their 
thighs, and in a crouching attitude and growl- 
ing, slowly advance upon one another. Then 
when near to one another, the spring is made 
and the men close. If after some time the round 
is not decided by a throw, the umpire, who struts 
about like a turkey-cock, fanning himself, ap- 
proaches. He plucks the girdle of the weaker 
combatant, when the wrestlers at once retire to 
the sides of the arena to rest, and to sprinkle a 
little water over themselves. 

In the neighborhood in which the children 
shown in the picture live, there is a temple 
(p. ii). In honor of the god a feast-day is 
held on the tenth of every month. The tenth 
day of the tenth month is a yet greater feast- 
day. On these days they go the first thing in 



Seven Scenes of Child-Life in Japan. 1 3 

the morning to the barber's, have their heads 
shaved and dressed, and their faces pow- 
dered with white, and their Hps and cheeks 
painted pink. They wear their best clothes 
and smartest sashes. Then they clatter off on 
their wooden clogs to the temple and buy two 
little rice-cakes at the gates. Next they come to 




• • 



The Young Wrestlers. 



two large, comical bronze dogs sitting on stands, 
one on each side of the path. They reach up 
and gently rub the dog's nose, then rub their own 
noses, rub the dog's eyes, and then their own, and 
soon, until they have touched the dog's and their 
own body all over. This is their way of praying 
for good health. They also add another to the 



14 Child-Life in Japan. 

number of little rags that have been hung by 
each visitor about the dog's neck. Then they 
go to the altar and give their cakes to a boy 
belonging to the temple. In exchange he pre- 
sents them with one rice-cake which has been 
blessed. They ring a round brass bell to call 
their god's attention, and throw him some money 
into a grated box as big as a child's crib. Then 
they squat down and pray to be good little boys. 
Now they go out and amuse themselves by look- 
ing at all the stalls of toys and cakes, and flowers 
and fish. 

The man who sells the gold-fish, with fan-like 
tails as long as their bodies, has also turtles. 
These boys at last settle that of all the pretty 
things they have seen they would best like to 
spend their money on a young turtle. For their 
pet rabbits and mice died, but turtles, they say, 
are painted on fans and screens and boxes be- 
cause turtles live for ten thousand years. Even 
the noble white crane is said to live no more 
than a thousand years In this picture they have 
carried home the turtle and are much amused at 
the funny way it walks and peeps its head in and 
out from u?ider its shell. 





/I 


I l^^ife .i "t ^^fe\ 




^^^M 


.^iM 



Playing wuh ihe Turtle. 



1 6 Child-Life in Japan. 



FIRST MONTH. 

Little Good Boy had just finished eating the 
last of five rice cakes called " dango," that had 
been strung on a skewer of bamboo and dipped 
in soy sauce, when he said to his little sister, 
called Chrysanthemum : — 

" 0-Kiku, it is soon the great festival of the 
New Year." 

" What shall we do then ? " asked little O-Kiku, 
not clearly remembering the festival of the pre- 
vious year. 

Thus questioned, Yoshi-san had his desired 
opening to hold forth on the coming delights, 
and he replied : — 

" Men will come the evening before the great 
feast-day and help Plum-blossom, our maid, to 
clean all the house with brush and broom. 
Others will set up the decoration in front of our 
honored gateway. They will dig two small holes 
and plant a gnarled, black-barked father-pine 
branch on the left, and the slighter reddish 
mother-pine branch on the right. They will then 
put with these the tall knotted stem of a bamboo, 
with its smooth, hard green leaves that chatter 

Yoshi-san. Yoshi means good, excellent, and san is like our 
" Mr.,'' but is applied to any one from big man to baby. The girls 
are named after flowers, stars, or other pretty or useful objects. 



First Month. 17 

when the wind blows. Next they will take a grass 
rope, about as long as a tall man, fringed with 
grass, and decorated with zigzag strips of white 
paper. These, our noble father says, are meant 
for rude images of men offering themselves in 
homage to the august gods." 

" Oh, yes ! I have not forgotten," interrupts 
Chrysanthemum, " this cord is stretched from 
bamboo to bamboo ; and Plum-blossom says the 
rope is to bar out the nasty two-toed, red, gray, 
and black demons, the badgers, the foxes, and 
other evil spirits from crossing our threshold. 
But I think it is the next part of the arch which 
is the prettiest, the whole bunch of things they 
tie in the middle of the rope. There is the 
crooked-back lobster, like a bowed old man, with 
all 9,round the camellia branches, whose young 
leaves bud before the old leaves fall. There are 
pretty fern leaves shooting forth in pairs, and 
deep down between them the little baby fern- 
leaf. There is the bitter yellow orange, whose 
name, you know, means ' many parents and chil- 
dren.' The name of the black piece of charcoal 
is a pun on our homestead." 

" But best of all," says Yoshi-san, " I like the 
seaweed hontawara, for it tells me of our brave 
Queen Jingu Kogo, who, lest the troops should 
be discouraged, concealed from the army that her 
husband the king had died, put on armor, and 



i8 



Child-Life in Japan. 



led the great campaign against Korea. Her 
troops, stationed at the margin of the sea, were 
in danger of defeat on account of the lack of 
fodder for their horses; when she ordered this 
hontawara to be plucked from the shore, and 
the horses, freshened by their meal of seaweed, 




Presenting the Tide-jewels to Hachiman. 



rushed victoriously to battle. On the bronzed 
clasp of our worthy father's tobacco-pouch Is, 
our noble father says, the Queen with her 
sword and the dear little baby prince, Hachi- 
man, who was born after the campaign, and 
who Is now our Warrior God, guiding our 
troops to victory, and that spirit on whose head 
squats a dragon has risen partly from the deep, 
to present an offering to the Queen and the 
Prince. 

The campaign against Korea : 200 a.d. 



First Month. 



19 



*' Then there is another seaweed, whose name 
is a pun on ' rejoicing.' There is the lucky bag 
that I made, for last year, of a square piece of 
paper into which we put chestnuts and the roe 
of a herring and dried persimmon fruit. Then 
I tied up the paper with red and w^hite paper- 
string, that the sainted gods might know it was 
an offering." 

Yoshi-san and his little sister had now reached 
the ofreat orate ornamented with hus^e 
bronze fishes sittino^ on their throats 
and twisting aloft their forked tails, 
that was near their home. He 
told his sister she must wait to 
know more about the great festi- 
val till the time arrived. They shuf- 
fled off their shoes, bowed, till their 
foreheads touched the ground, to 
their parents, ate their evening 
bowl of rice and salt fish, said a prayer and burnt 
a stick of incense to many-armed Buddha at the 

The Queen and tJie Prince: See the story of "The Jewels of the 
Ebbing and the Flowing Tide" in the book of "Japanese Fairy 
Tales" in this series. Ojin, son of Jingu Kogo, was, much later, 
deified as the god of war, Hachiman. See "The Religions of 
Japan," p. 204. 

The bronze fisJies. called shachi-hoko, are huge metal figures, 
like dolphins, from four to twelve feet high, which were set on 
the pinnacles of the old castle towers in the days of feudalism. 
That from Nagoya, exhibited at the Vienna Exposition, had scales 
of solid gold. 




" Bronze fishes 
sitti ng on 
their throats." 



20 Child-Life in Japan. 

family altar They spread their cotton-wadded 
quilts, rested their dear little shaved heads, with 
quaint circlet of hair, on the roll of cotton covered 
with white paper that formed the cushion of their 
hard wooden pillows. Soon they fell asleep to 
their mother's monotonously chanted lullaby of 
"Nenne ko." 

" Sleep, my child, sleep, my child, 
Where is thy nurse gone ? 
She is gone to the mountains 
To buy thee sweetmeats. 
What shall she buy thee ? 
The thundering drum, the bamboo pipe, 
The trundling man, or the paper kite." 

The great festival drew still nearer, to the chil- 
dren's delight, as they watched the previously 
described graceful bamboo arch rise before their 
gateposts. Then came a party of three with an 
oven, a bottomless tub, and some matting to 
replace the bottom. They shifted the pole that 
carried these utensils from their shoulders, and 
commenced to make the Japanese cake that may 
be viewed as the equivalent of a Christmas pud- 
ding. They mixed a paste of rice and put the 
sticky mass, to prevent rebounding, on the soft 
mat in the tub. The third man then beat for 
a long time the rice cake with a heavy mallet. 
Yoshi-san liked to watch the strong man swing 
down his mallet with dull resounding thuds. 



First Month. 21 

The well-beaten dough was then made up into 
flattish rounds of varying size on a pastry board 
one of the men had brought. Three cakes of 
graduated size formed a pyramid that was placed 
conspicuously on a lacquered stand, and the cakes 
were only to be eaten on the 1 1 th of January. 

The mother told Plum-blossom and the chil- 
dren to get their clogs and overcoats and hoods, 
for she was going to get the New Year's decora- 
tions. The party shuffled off till they came to a 
stall where were big grass ropes and fringes and 
quaint grass boats filled with supposed bales of 
merchandise in straw coverings, a sun in red paper, 
and at bow and stern sprigs of fir. The whole was 
brightened by bits of gold leaf, lightly stuck on, 
that quivered here and there. When the children 
had chosen the harvest ship that seemed most 
besprinkled with gold. Plum-blossom bargained 
about the price. The mother, as a matter of 
form and rank, had pretended to take no inter- 
est in the purchase. She took her purse out of 
her sash, handed it to her servant, who opened it, 
paid the shopman, and then returned the purse 
to her mistress. This she did with the usual 
civility of first raising it to her forehead. The 
decorations they hung up in their sitting-room. 
Then they sent presents, such as large dried carp, 
tea, eggs, shoes, kerchiefs, fruits, sweets, or toys 
to various friends and dependants. 



22 Child-Life in Japan. 

On the ist of January all were early astir, for 
the father, dressed at dawn in full European even- 
ing dress, as is customary on such occasions, had 
to pay his respects at the levee of the Emperor. 
When this duty was over, he returned home 
and received visitors of rank inferior to himself. 
Later in the day and on the following day he paid 
visits of New Year greeting to all his friends. He 
took a present to those to whom he had sent no 
gift. Sometimes he had his little boy with him. 
For these visits Yoshi-san, in place of his usual 
flowing robe, loose trousers, and sash, wore a 
funny little knickerbocker suit, felt hat, and boots. 
These latter, though he thought them grand, felt 
very uncomfortable after his straw sandals. They 
were more troublesome to take off before step- 
ping on the straw mats, that, being used as chairs 
as well as carpets, it would be a rudeness to soil. 
The maids, always kneeling, presented them with 
tiny cups of tea on oval saucers, which, remaining 
in the maid's hand, served rather as waiters. 
Sweetmeats, too, usually of a soft, sticky nature, 
but sometimes hard like sugar-plums, and called 
" fire-sweets," were offered on carved lotus-leaf or 
lacquered trays. 

For the 2d of January Plum-blossom bought 

First of January : The old Chinese or lunar calendar ended in 
Japan, and the solar or Gregorian calendar began, January i, 1872^ 
when European dress was adopted by the official class. 



First Month. 



23 



some pictures of the treasure-ship or ship of 
riches, in which were seated the seven Gods of 
Wealth. It has been sung thus about this Ship 
of Luck : — 




The Tkeasure-Ship and the Seven Gods of Happiness. 



" Nagaki yo no, 
To no numuri no. 
Mina m6 same. 
Nami nori fune no. 
Oto no voki kana." 



It is a long night. 

The gods of luck sleep. 

They all open their eyes. 

They ride in a boat on the Nvaves. 

The sound is pleasing ! 



These pictures they each tied on their pillow 
to bring lucky dreams. Great was the laughter 



TJie seven Gods of W^ealth : Concerning the origin of these pop- 
ular deities, see "The Religions o+" Japan," p. 218. 



24 Child-Life in Japan. 

in the morning when they related their dreams. 
Yoshi-san said he had dreamt he had a beautiful 
portmanteau full of nice foreign things, such as 
comforters, note-books, pencils, india-rubber, con- 
densed milk, lama, wide-awakes, boots, and brass 
jewelry. Just as he opened it, everything van- 
ished and he found only a torn fan, an odd chop- 
stick, a horse's cast straw shoe, and a live crow. 

When at home, the children, for the first few 
days of the New Year, dressed in their best crepe, 
made up in three silken-wadded layers. Their 
crest was embroidered on the centre of the back 
and on the sleeves of the quaintly flowered long 
upper skirt. Beneath its wadded hem peeped 
the scarlet rolls of the hems of their under-dresses, 
and then the white-stockinged feet, with, passing 
between the toes, the scarlet thong of the black- 
lacquered clog. The little girl's sash was of 
many-flowered brocade, with scarlet broidered 
pouch hanging at her right side. A scarlet over- 
sash kept the large sash-knot in its place. Her 
hair was gay with knot of scarlet crinkled crepe, 
lacquered comb, and hairpin of tiny golden battle- 
dore. Resting thereon were a shuttlecock of 
coral, another pin of a tiny red lobster and a green 
pine sprig made of silk. In her belt was coquet- 
tishly stuck the butterfly-broidered case that held 
her quire of paper pocket-handkerchiefs. The 
brother's dress was of a simpler style and soberer 



First Month. 2C 

coloring. His pouch of purple had a dragon 

worked on it, and the hair of his partly shaven 

head was tied into a li4;tle gummed tail with 

white paper-string. " They spent most of the day 

playing with their pretty new battledores, striking 

with its plain side the airy little shuttlecock whose 

head is made of a black seed. All the while they 

sang a rhyme on the numbers up to ten : — 

" Hitogo ni futa-go — mi-watashi yo me-go, 
Itsu yoni musashi nan no yakushi, 
Kokono-ya ja — to yo." 

When tired of this fun, they would play with 
a ball made of paper and wadding evenly wound 
about with thread or silk of various colors. They 
sang to the throws a song which seems abrupt 
because some portions have probably fallen into 
disuse ; it runs thus : — 

" See opposite — see Shin-kawa ! A very beau- 
tiful lady who is one of the daughters of a chief 
magistrate of Odawara-cho. She was married 
to a salt merchant. He was a man fond of dis- 
play, and he thought how he would dress her this 
year. He said to the dyer, ' Please dye this bro- 
cade and the brocade for the middle dress into 
seven- or eight-fold dresses ; ' and the dyer said, 
I am a dyer, and therefore I will dye and stretch 
it. What pattern do you wish ? ' The merchant 
replied, ' The pattern of falling snow and broken 
twigs, and in the centre the curved bridge of Gojo.' " 




20 Child-Life in Japan. 

Then to fill up the rhyme come the words, 
" Chokin, chokera, kokin, kokera," and the tale 
goes on: "Crossing this bridge the girl was 
-"^^^^^^^^^^ struck here and there, 

and the tea-house girls 
laughed. Put out of 
countenance by this ridi- 
cule, she drowned herself 
in the river Karas, the 

Girls' Ball and Counting body SUnk, the hair floated. 

Game. How full of grief the hus- 

band's heart — now the ball counts a hundred." 
This they varied with another song : — 

" One, two, three, four. 
Grate hard charcoal, shave kiri wood ; 
Put in the pocket, the pocket is wet, 
Kiyomadzu, on three yenoki trees 
Were three sparrows, chased by a pigeon. 
The sparrows said, ' Chiu, chiu,' 
The pigeon said, ' po, po,' — now the 
Ball counts a hundred." 

The pocket referred to means the bottom of 
the long sleeve, which is apt to trail and get wet 
when a child stoops at play. Kiyomadzu may 
mean a famous temple that bears that name. 
Sometimes they would simply count the turns 
and make a sort of game of forfeiting and re- 
turning the number of rebounds kept up by each. 

Yoshi-san had begun to think battledore and 



First Month. 27 

balls too girlish an amusement He preferred fly- 
ing his eagle or mask-like kite, or playing at cards, 
verses, or lotteries. Sometimes he played a lively 
game with his father, in which the board is divided 
into squares and diagonals On these move six- 
teen men held by one player and one large piece 
held by the second player. The point of the 
game is either that the holder of the sixteen pieces 
hedges the large piece so it that can make no 
move, or that the big piece takes all its adversa- 
ries. A take can only be made by the large piece 
when it finds a piece immediately on each side of 
it and a blank point beyond. Or he watched a 
party of several, with the pictured sheet of Japan- 
ese backgammon before them, write their names 
on slips of paper or wood, and throw in turn a 
die. The slips are placed on the pictures whose 
numbers correspond with the throw. At the next 
round, if the number thrown by the particular 
player is written on the picture, he finds directions 
as to which picture to move his slip backward or 
forward to. He may, however, find his throw 
a blank and have to remain at his place. The 
winning consists in reaching a certain picture. 
When tired of these quieter games, the strolling 
woman player on a guitar-like instrument, would be 
called in. Or, a party of Kangura boy performers 
afforded pastime by the quaint animal-like move- 
ments of the draped figure. He wears a huge 



28 



Child-Life in Japan. 




grotesque scarlet mask on 
his head, and at times makes 
this monster appear to 
stretch out and draw in its 
neck by an unseen change in 
position of the mask from 
the head to the gradually 
extended and draped hand 
of the actor. The beat of 
a drum and the whistle of a 
bamboo flute formed the 
accompaniment to the dumb- 
show acting. 



Firemen's Gymnastics at New Year's Time. 

Yoshi-san thought the 4th and 5th days of Janu- 
ary great fun, because loud shoutings were heard. 
Running in the direction of the sound, he found 



First Month. 



29 



the men of a fire-brigade who had formed a pro- 
cession to carry their new paper standard, bam- 
boo ladders, paper lanterns, etc. This procession 
paused at intervals. Then the men steadied 
the ladder with their long fire-hooks, whilst an 
agile member of the band mounted the erect 




Street Tumblers playing Kangura in Tokio. 

ladder and performed gymnastics at the top. His 
performance concluded, he dismounted, and the 
march continued, the men as before yelling joy- 
ously, at the highest pitch of their voices. 

After about a week of fun, life at the villa, 
gradually resumed its usual course, the father 
returned to his office, the mother to her domestic 
employmicnts, and the children to school, all hav- 
ing said for that new year their last joy-wishing 
greeting — omedeto (congratulations). 



3© Child-Life in Japan. 



THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW. 

YosHi-SAN and his Grandmother go to visit the 
great temple at Shiba. They walk up its steep 
stairs, and arrive at the lacquered threshold. 
Here they place aside their wooden clogs, throw 
a few coins into a huge box standing on the floor. 
It is covered with a wooden grating so constructed 
as to prevent pilfering hands afterward removing 
the coin. Then they pull a thick rope attached 
to a big brass bell like an exaggerated sheep-bell, 
hanging from the ceiling, but which gives forth 
but a feeble, tinkling sound. To insure the god's 
attention, this is supplemented with three distinct 
claps of the hands, which are afterward clasped 
in prayer for a short interval ; tv\^o more claps 
mark the conclusion. Then, resuming their clogs, 
they clatter down the steep, copper-bound temple 
steps into the grounds. Here are stalls innumer- 
able of toys, fruit, fish-cakes, birds, tobacco-pipes, 
ironmongery, and rice, and scattered amidst the 
stalls are tea-houses, peep-shows, and other places 
of amusement. Of these the greatest attraction 
is a newly-opened chrysanthemum show. 

The chrysanthemums are trained to represent 
figures. Here is a celebrated warrior, Kato 
Kiyomasa by name, who lived about the year 
1600, when the eminent Hashiba (Hideyoshi) 



The Chrysanthemum Show. 



31 



ruled Japan. Near the end of his reign Hashiba, 
wishing to invade China, but being himself unable 
to command the expedition, intrusted the leader- 
ship of the fleet and army to Kiyomasa. They 
embarked, reached Korea, where a fierce battle 
was fought and victory gained by Kiyomasa. 
When, however, he returned to Japan, he found 
Hideyoshi had died, and the expedition was there- 
fore recalled. Tales of the liberality and gener- 




Eating Stand for the Children. 



osity of the Chief, and how he, single-handed, had 
slain a large and wild tiger with the spear that he 
is represented as holding, led to his being at length 
addressed as a god. His face is modelled in plas- 
ter and painted, and the yellow chrysanthemum 
blossoms may be supposed to be gold bosses on 
the verdant armor. 



32 Child-Life in Japan. 

Next they looked at eccentric varieties of this 
autumn flower, such as those having the petals 
longer and more curly than usual. To show off 
the flowers every branch was tied to a stick, which 
caused Yoshi-san to think the bushes looked a 
little stiff and ugly. Near the warrior was a 
chrysanthemum-robed lady, Benten, standing in 
a flowery sailing-boat that is supposed to con- 
tain a cargo of jewels. Three rabbits farther 
on appeared to be chatting together. Perhaps 
the best group of all was old Fukurokujin, with 
white beard and bald head. He was conversing 
with two of the graceful waterfowl so constantly 
seen in Japanese decorations. He is the god of 
luck, and has a reputation for liking good cheer. 
This is suggested by a gourd, a usual form of 
wine-bottle, that is suspended to his cane, whilst 
another gourd contains homilies. He was said 
to be so tender-hearted that even timid wild 
fowl were not afraid of him. 

Not the least amusing part of the show was 
the figure before which Yoshi's Grandmother 
exclaimed, " Why, truly, that is clever ! Behold, 
I pray thee, a barbarian lady, and even her 
child ! " In truth it was an unconscious cari- 
cature of Europeans, although the lady's face 
had not escaped being made to look slightly 
Japanese. The child held a toy, and had a 
regular shock head of hair. The frizzed hair of 



The Chrysanthemum Show. 33 

many foreign children appeared very odd to Yo- 
shi-san. He thought their mothers must be very 
unkind not to take the Httle " western men " more 
often to the barber's. He complacently com- 
pared the neatness of his own shaven crown and 
tidily-clipped and gummed side-locks. 

Being tired of standing, the old Grandmother 
told her grandson they would go and listen to a 
recital at the story-teller's. Leaving their wooden 
shoes in a pigeon-hole for that purpose, they 
joined an attentive throng of some twenty listen- 
ers seated on mats in a dimly-lighted room. 
Yoshi could not make out all the tale-teller said, 
but he liked to watch him toy with his fan as he 
introduced his listeners to the characters of his 
story. Then the story-teller would hold his fan 
like a rod of command, whilst he kept his audi- 
ence in rapt attention, then sometimes, amidst the 
laughter of those present, he would raise his 
voice to a shrill whine, and would emphasize a 
joke by a sharp tap on the table with his fan. 
After they had listened to one tale Yoshi-san was 
sleepy. So they went and bargained with a man 
outside who had a carriage like a small gig with 
shafts called a " jin-riki-sha." He ran after them 
to say he consented to wheel them home the 
two and a half miles for five cents. 

The j'hi-rikz-s ha, man -power-carriage, invented in Japan in 1871, 
is now used ail over tlie East. 



34 



Child-Life in Japan, 




FISHSAVE. 

"^J^HERE was once upon a time a 
little baby whose father was Japa- 
nese ambassador to the court of 
China, and whose mother was a 
Chinese lady. While this child 
was still in its infancy the ambas- 
sador had to return to Japan. So 
he said to his wife, " I swear to 
remember you and to send you 
letters by the ambassador that shall succeed me ; 
and as for our baby, I will despatch some one 
to fetch it as soon as it is weaned." Thus say- 
ing he departed. 

Well, embassy after embassy came (and there 
was generally at least a year between each), but 
never a letter from the Japanese husband to the 
Chinese wife. At last, tired of waiting and of 
grieving, she took her boy by the hand, and sorrow- 
fully leading him to the seashore, fastened round 
his neck a label bearing the words, " The 
Japanese ambassador's child." Then she flung 
him into the sea in the direction of the Japanese 
Archipelago, confident that the paternal tie was 
one which it was not possible to break, and that 
therefore father and child were sure to meet 
again. 



Fishsave. 



35 



One day, when the former ambassador, the 
father, was riding by the beach of Naniwa 
(where afterward was built the city of Osaka), 
he saw something white floating out at sea, look- 
ing like a small island. It floated nearer, and he 
looked more attentively. There was no doubt 
about its being a child. Quite astonished, he 




Fishsave riding the Dolphin to Japan. 



stopped his horse and gazed again. The floating 
object drew nearer and nearer still. At last 
with perfect distinctness it was perceived to be 
a fair, pretty little boy, of about four years old, 
impelled onward by the waves. 

Still closer inspection showed that the boy 
rode bravely on the back of an enormous fish. 
When the strange rider had dismounted on the 



36 Child-Life in Japan. 

strand, the ambassador ordered his attendants 
to take the manly little fellow in their arms, 
when lo, and behold ! there was the label round 
his neck, on which was written, " The Japanese 
ambassador s child." " Oh, yes," he exclaimed, 
" it must be my child and no other, whom its 
mother, angry at having received no letters from 
me, must have thrown into the sea. Now, owing 
to the indissoluble bond tying together parents 
and children, he has reached me safely, riding 
upon a fish's back." The air of the little crea- 
ture went to his heart, and he took and tended 
him most lovingly. 

To the care of the next embassy that went 
to the court of China, he intrusted a letter for 
his wife, in which he informed her of all the 
particulars ; and she, who had quite believed 
the child to be dead, rejoiced at its marvellous 
escape. 

The child grew up to be a man, whose hand- 
writing was beautiful. Having been saved by a 
fish, he was given the name of " Fishsave." 

Beautiful handwritrng was considered one of the most admirable 
of accomplishments in old Japan. 




The Filial Girl. 37 



THE FILIAL GIRL. 

GIRL once Jived In the 
province of E c h i g o, 
who from her earliest 
years tended her parents 
with all filial piety. Her 
BowixNG BEFORE HER MOTHER'S niothcr, whcn, aftcr a long 
Mirror. illness she lay at the point 

of death, took out a mirror that she had for many 
years concealed, and giving it to her daughter, 
spoke thus, " When I have ceased to exist, take 
this mirror in thy hand night and morning, and 
looking at it, fancy that 'tis I thou seest." 

With these last words she expired, and the 
girl, full of grief, and faithful to her mother's 
commands, used to take out the mirror night and 
morning, and gazing in it, saw therein a face like 
to the face of her mother. Delighted thereat 
(for the village was situated in a remote country 
district among the mountains, and a mirror was 
a thing the girl had never heard of), she daily 
worshipped her reflected face. She bowed before 
it till her forehead touched the mat, as if this 
image had been in very truth her mother's own 
self. 

Echigo : the province on the west coast, now famous for its petro-- 
leum wells. 



38 Child-Life in Japan. 

Her father one day, astonished to see her thus 
occupied, inquired the reason, which she directly 
told him. But he burst out laughing, and ex- 
claimed, " Why ! 'tis only thine own face, so like 
to thy mother's, that is reflected. It is not thy 
mother's at all ! " 

This revelation distressed the girl. Yet she 
replied : " Even if the face be not my mother's, it 
is the face of one who belonged to my mother, 
and therefore my respectfully saluting it twice 
every day is the same as respectfully saluting her 
very self." And so she continued to worship the 
mirror more and more while tending her father 
with all filial piety — at least so the story goes, 
for even to-day, as great poverty and ignorance 
prevail in some parts of Echigo, the peasantry 
know as little of mirrors as did this little girl. 

THE PARSLEY QUEEN. 

How curious that the daughter of a peasant 
dwelling in a obscure country village near Aska, 
in the province of Yamato, should become a 
Queen ! Yet such was the case. Her father 
died while she was yet in her infancy, and the 
girl applied herself to the tending of her mother 
with all filial piety. One day when she had gone 
out in the fields to gather some parsley, of which 
her mother was very fond, it chanced that Prince 



The Parsley Queen. 



39 



Shotoku, the great Buddist teacher,* was making 
a progress to his palace, and all the inhabitants of 
the country-side flocked to the road along which 
the procession was passing, in order to behold the 
gorgeous spectacle, and to show their respect 
for the Mikado's son. The filial girl, alone, pay- 




Imitating the Procession to the Temple. 

ing no heed to what was going on around her, 
continued picking her parsley. She was observed 
from his carriage by the Prince, who, astonished 
at the circumstance, sent one of his retainers to 
inquire into its cause. 

* P?'hice Shotoku Taiski, a great patron of Buddhism, who, though 
a layman, is canonized (see "The KeHgions of Japan,'' p. i8o). A 
story much like that of '• The Parsley Queen ''' is told in the province of 
Echizen. Yamato is the old classic centre of ancient life and historv. 



40 Child-Life in Japan. 

The girl replied, " My mother bade me pick 
parsley, and I am following her instructions — 
that is the reason why I have not turned round 
to pay my respects to the Prince." The latter 
being informed of her answer, was filled with 
admiration at the strictness of her filial piety. 
Alighting at her mother's cottage on the way 
back, he told her of the occurrence, and placing 
the girl in the next carriage to his own, took her 
home with him to the Imperial Palace, and 
ended by making her his wife, upon which the 
people, knowing her story, gave her the name of 
the " Parsley Queen." 



THE TWO DAUGHTERS. 

At Akita, in the province of Inaba, lived an 
independent gentleman, who had two daughters, 
by whom he was ministered to with all filial piety. 
He was fond of shooting with a gun, and thus 
very often committed the sin (according to the 
teaching of holy Buddha) of taking life. He 
would never hearken to the admonitions of his 

An independent gentleman, a ro7iin or " wave man," one who had 
left the service of his feudal lord and was independent, — sometimes 
a gentleman and a scholar, oftener a ruffian or vagabond. Buddhism, 
on account of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, forbids the 
taking of life. There are very few storks in Japan, but white heron 
are quite common. 



The Two Daughters. 



41 



daughters. These, mindful of the future, and 
aghast at the prospect in store for him in the world 
to come, frequently endeavored to convert him. 
Many were the tears they shed. At last one day, 
after they had pleaded with him more earnestly 
still than before, the father, touched by their 
supplications, promised to 
shoot no more. But, after 
a while, some of his neigh- 
bors came round to request 
him to shoot for them 
two storks. He was easily 
led to consent by the 
strength of his natural 
liking for the sport. Still 
he would not allow a word ^he Two white birds. 

to be breathed to his daughters. He slipped 
out at night, gun in hand, after they were, as he 
imagined, fast asleep. 

They, however, had heard everything, and the 
elder sister said to the younger : " Do what we 
may, our father will not condescend to follow our 
words of counsel, and nothing now remains but 
to bring him to a knowledge of the truth by the 
sacrifice of one of our own lives. To-night is 
fortunately moonless ; and if I put on white gar- 
ments and go to the neighborhood of the bay, he 
will take me for a stork and shoot me dead. Do 
you continue to live and tend our father with all 




42 Child-Life in Japan. 

the services of filial piety." Thus she spake, her 
eyes dimmed with the rolling tears. But the 
younger sister, with many sobs, exclaimed : " For 
you, my sister, for you is it to receive the 
inheritance of this house. So do you conde- 
scend to be the one to live, and to practise filial 
devotion to our father, while I will offer up my 
life." 

Thus did each strive for death. The elder one, 
without more words, seizing a white garment 
rushed out of the house. The younger one, un- 
willing to cede to her the place of honor, putting 
on a white gown also, followed in her track to 
the shore of the bay. There, making her way 
to her among the rushes, she continued the dis- 
pute as to which of the two should be the one 
to die. 

Meanwhile the father, peering around him in 
the darkness, saw something white. Taking It 
for the storks, he aimed at the spot with his gun, 
and did not miss his shot, for it pierced through 
the ribs of the elder of the two girls. The 
younger, helpless in her grief, bent over her sis- 
ter's body. The father, not dreaming of what he 
was about, and astonished to find that his having 
shot one of the storks did not make the other fly 
away, discharged another shot at the remaining 
white figure. Lamentable to relate, he hit his 
second daughter as he had the first. She fell, 



The Two Daughters. 43 

pierced through the chest, and was laid on the 
same grassy pillow as her sister. 

The father, pleased with his success, came 
up to the rushes to look for his game. But 
what ! no storks, alas ! alas ! No, only his two 
daughters! Filled with consternation, he asked 
what it all meant. The girls, breathing with 
difficulty, told him that their resolve had been 
to show him the crime of taking life, and thus 
respectfully to cause him to desist therefrom. 
They expired before they had time to say 
more. 

The father was filled with sorrow and re- 
morse. He took the two corpses home on his 
back. As there was now no help for what was 
done, he placed them reverently on a wood stack, 
and there they burnt, making smoke to the blow- 
ing wind. From that hour he was a converted 
man. He built himself a small cell of branches 
of trees, near the village bridge. Placing therein 
the memorial tablets of his two daughters, he 
performed before them the due religious rites, 
and became the most pious follower of Buddha. 
Ah ! that was filial piety in very truth ! a marvel, 
that these girls should throw away their own 
lives, so that, by exterminating the evil seed in 
their father's conduct in this world, they might 
guard him from its awful fruit in the world 
to come ! 



44 Child-Life in Japan. 



SECOND SIGHT. 

A TRAVELLER arrived at a village, and looking 
about for an inn, he found one that, although 
rather shabby, would, he thought, suit him. So 
he asked whether he could pass the night there, 
and the mistress said certainly. No one lived at 
the inn except the mistress, so that the traveller 
was quite undisturbed. 

The next morning, after he had finished break- 
fast, the traveller went out of the house to make 
arrangements for continuing his journey. To 
his surprise, his hostess asked him to stop a 
moment. She said that he owed her a thousand 
pounds, solemnly declaring that he had borrowed 
that sum from her inn long years ago. The 
traveller was astonished greatly at this, as it 
seemed to him a preposterous demand. So 
fetching his trunk, he soon hid himself by draw- 
ing a curtain all round him. 

After thus secluding himself for some time, he 
called the woman and asked, " Was your father 
an adept in the art of second sight?" The 
woman replied, "Yes; my father secluded him- 
self just as you have done." Said the traveller, 
" Explain fully to me why you say I owe you so 
large a sum." The mistress then related that 
when her father was going to die, he bequeathed 



Second Sight. 45 

her all his possessions except his money. He 
said, that on a certain day, ten years later, a 
traveller would lodge at her house, and that, as 
the said traveller owed him a thousand pounds, 
she could reclaim at that time this sum from his 
debtor. She must subsist in the meanwhile by 
the gradual sale of her father's goods. 

Hitherto, being unable to earn as much money 
as she spent, she had been disposing of the in- 
herited valuables, but had now exhausted nearly 
all of them. In the meantime, the predicted date 
had arrived, and a traveller had lodged at her 
house, just as her father had foretold. Hence 
she concluded he was the man from whom she 
should recover the thousand pounds. 

On hearing this the traveller said that all that 
the woman had related was perfectly true. Tak- 
ing her to one side of the room, he told her to 
tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden 
pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow 
sound. The traveller said that the money spoken 
about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part 
of the pillar. Then advising her to spend it only 
gradually, he went on his way. 

The father of this woman had been extremely 
skilful in the art of second sight or clairvoyance. 
By its means he had discovered that his daughter 
would pass through ten years of extreme poverty 
and that on a certain future day a diviner would 



46 



Child-Life in Japan. 



come and lodge in the house. The father was 
also aware that if he bequeathed his daughter his 
money at once, she would spend it extravagantly. 
Upon consideration, therefore, he hid the money 
in the pillar, and instructed his daughter as re- 
lated. In accordance with the father's prophecy, 
the man came and lodged in the house on the 
predicted day, and by the art of divination dis- 
covered the thousand pounds. 



GAMES. 

HE games we are daily play- 
ing at in our nurseries, or 
some of them, have been also 
played at for centuries by 
Japanese boys and girls. Such 
are blindman's buff (eye-hid- 
ing), puss-in-the-corner, catch- 
ing, racing, scrambling, a 
variety of " here we go round 
the mulberry bush." The 
game of knuckle-bones is played with five little 
stuffed bags instead of sheep bones, which the 
children cannot get, as sheep are not used by 
the Japanese. Also performances such as honey- 
pots, heads in chancery, turning round back to 
back, or hand to hand, are popular among that 




Games. 



47 



long-sleeved, shaven-pated small fry. Still better 
than snow-balling, the lads like to make a snow- 
man, with a round charcoal ball for each eye, and 
a streak of charcoal for his mouth. This they call 
Buddha's squat follower " Daruma," whose legs 
rotted off through his stillness over his lengthy 
prayers. 




Eye-Hiding, or Blimdman's Buff. 

As might be expected, some of the Japanese 
games differ slightly from ours, or else are alto- 
gether peculiar to that country. The facility 
with which a Japanese child slips its shoes on 
and off, and the absence on the part of the 
parents of conventional or health scruples re- 
garding bare feet, lead to a sort of game of ball 
in which the shoes take the part of the ball, and 
to hiding pranks with the sandal, something like 
our hunt the slipper and hide-and-seek. On 



48 



Child-Life in Japan. 



the other hand, kago play is entirely Japanese. 
In this game, two children carry a bamboo pole 
on their shoulders, on to which clings a third 
child, in imitation of a usual mode of travelling 
in Japan. In this the passenger is seated in a 

light bamboo palanquin 
borne on men's shoulders. 
y /^^ M ^ miniature festival is 

A// ^%^ n thought great fun, when 

a few bits of rough wood 
mounted on wheels are 
decorated with cut paper 
and evergreens, and drawn 
slowly along amidst the 
shouts of the exultant con- 
trivers, in mimicry of the 
real festival cars. Games 
of soldiers are of two 
types. When copied from 
the historical fights, one 
boy, with his kerchief 
bound round his temples, 
makes a supposed marvel- 
lous and heroic defence. He slashes with his 
bamboo sword, as a harlequin waves his baton, to 
deal magical destruction all around on the attack- 
ing party. When the late insurrection com- 
menced in Satsuma, the Tokio boys, hearing of 
the campaign on modern tactics, would form 




Stilts and Clog-Throwing. 



Games. 



49 



attack and defence parties. A little company 
armed with bamboo breech-loaders would march 
to the assault of the roguish battalion lurking 
round the corner. 

Wrestling, again, is popular wdth children, not 
so much on account of the actual throwing, as 




Playing at Batter-Cakes. 

from the love of imitating the curious growling 
and animal-like springing, with which the profes- 
sional wrestlers encounter one anothen Swim- 
ming, fishing, and general puddling about are con- 
genial occupation for hot summer days ; whilst 
some with a toy bamboo pump, like a Japanese 
feeble fire-engine, manage to send a squirt of water 
at a friend, as the firemen souse their comrades 



50 Child-Life in Japan. 

standing on the burning housetops. Itinerant 
street sellers have, on stalls of a height suited to 
their little customers, an array of what looks like 
pickles. This is made of bright seaweed pods 
that the children buy to make a " clup ! " sort of 
noise with between their lips, so that they go 
about apparently hiccoughing all day long. The 
smooth glossy leaves of the camellia, as common 
as hedge roses are in England, make very fair 
little trumpets when blown after having been 
expertly rolled up, or in spring their fallen blos- 
soms are strung into gay chains. 

On a border-land between games and sweets 
are the stalls of the itinerant batter-sellers. At 
these the tiny purchaser enjoys the evidently 
much appreciated privilege of himself arranging 
his little measure of batter in fantastic forms, and 
drying them upon a hot metal plate. A turtle is 
a favorite design, as the first blotch of batter 
makes its body, and six judiciously arranged 
smaller dabs soon suggest its head, tail, and feet. 

THE GAMES AND SPORTS OF JAPANESE 

CHILDREN.* 

How often in Japan one sees that the children of 
a larger growth enjoy with equal zest games which 
are the same, or nearly the same, as those of lesser 

* From the paper read before The Asiatic Society of Japan. 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 51 



size and fewer years ! Certain It is that the adults 
do all in their power to provide for the children 
their full quota of play and harmless sports. We 
frequently see full-grown and able-bodied natives 
indulo-inor in amusements w^ilch the men of the 
West lay aside with their pinafores, or when their 
curls are cut. If we, in the conceited pride of 
our superior civilization, look down upon this as 
childish, we must remem- 
ber that the Oriental, from 
the pinnacle of his lofty, 
and to him immeasurably 
elevated, civilization, looks 
down upon our manly 
sports with contempt, 
thinklno- it a condescen- 
sion even to notice them. 
A very noticeable 
change has passed over 
the Japanese people since 

the modern advent of foreigners In respect to 
their love of amusement. Their sports are by no 
means as numerous or elaborate as formerly, and 
they do not enter Into them with the enthusiasm 
that formerly characterized them. The children's 
festivals and sports are rapidly losing their impor- 
tance, and some now are rarely seen. Formerly the 
holidays were almost as numerous as saints' days In 
the calendar. Apprentice-boys had a liberal quota 




Hoisting the Rice-Beer Keg 
ON Festr'al-Dav, 



52 Child-Life in Japan. 

of holidays stipulated in their indentures ; and as 
the children counted the days before each great 
holiday on their fingers, we may believe that a great 
deal of digital arithmetic was being continually 
done. We do not know of any country in the world 
in which there are so many toy-shops or so many 
fairs for the sale of things which delight chil- 
dren. Not only are the streets of every city 
abundantly supplied with shops, filled as full as 
a Christmas stocking with gaudy toys, but in 
small towns and villages one or more children's 
bazaars may be found. The most gorgeous dis- 
play of all things pleasing to the eye of a 
Japanese child is found in the courts or streets 
leading to celebrated temples. On a festival 
day, the toy-sellers and itinerant showmen throng 
with their most attractive wares or sights in front 
of the shrine or temple. On the walls and in 
conspicuous places near the churches and cathe- 
drals in Europe and America, the visitor is usu- 
ally regaled with the sight of undertakers' signs 
and gravediggers' advertisements. How differ- 
ently the Japanese act in these respects let any 
one see, by visiting one or all of the three greatest 
temples in Tokio, or one of the numerous smaller 
shrines on some renowned festival day. 

We have not space in this paper to name or 
describe the numerous street shows and showmen 
who are supposed to be interested mainly in 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 53 

entertaining children ; though in reality adults 
form a part, often the major part, of their audi- 
ences. Any one desirous of seeing these in full 
glory must ramble down some of the side streets 
in Tokio, on some fair day, and especially on a 
general holiday. 

Among the most common are the street theat- 
ricals, in which two, three, or four trained boys 
and girls do some very creditable acting, chiefly 
in comedy. Raree shows, in which the looker-on 
sees the inside splendors of the nobles' homes, 
or the heroic acts of Japanese warriors, or some 
famous natural scenery, are very common. The 
showman, as he pulls the wires that change the 
scenes, entertains the spectators with songs. The 
outside of his box is usually adorned with pictures 
of famous actors, nine-tailed foxes, demons of all 
colors, people committing hari-kiri or stomach 
cutting, bloody massacres, or some such staple 
horror in which the normal Japanese so delights. 
Story-tellers, posturers, dancers, actors of charades, 
conjurers, flute-players, song-singers are found on 
these streets, but those who specially delight the 
children are the men who, by dint of fingers and 
breath, work a paste made of wheat-gluten into all 
sorts of curious and gayly-smeared toys, such as 
flowers, trees, noblemen, fair ladies, various uten- 
sils, the foreigner, the jin-riki-sha, etc. Nearly 
every itinerant seller of candy, starch-cakes, 



54 Child-Life in Japan. 

sugared peas, and sweetened beans, has several 
methods of lottery by which he adds to the attrac- 
tions on his stall. A disk having a revolving 
arrow, whirled round by the hand of a child, or a 
number of strings which are connected with the 
faces of imps, goddesses, devils, or heroes, lends 
the excitement of chance, and, when a lucky pull 
or whirl occurs, occasions the subsequent addition 
to the small fraction of a sen's worth to be bought. 
Men or women walk about, carrying a small char- 
coal brazier under a copper griddle, with batter, 
spoons, cups, and shoyu sauce to hire out for the 
price of a jumon each to the little urchins who 
spend an afternoon of bliss, making their own 
griddle-cakes and eating them. The seller of 
sugar-jelly exhibits a devil, taps a drum, and 
dances for the benefit of his baby-customers. 
The seller of nice pastry does the same, with the 
addition of gymnastics and, skilful tricks with balls 
of dough. In every Japanese city there are scores, 
if not hundreds of men and women who obtain a 
livelihood by amusing the children. 

Some of the games of Japanese children are of 
a national character, and are indulged in by all 
classes. Others are purely local or exclusive. 
Among the former are those which belong to the 
great festival days, which in the old calendar 

Shoyu : the origin of the English soy. 
A jumon : the tenth part of a sen or cent. 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 55 

(before 1872) enjoyed vastly more importance than 
under the new one. Beginning with the first of 
the year, there are a number of games and sports 
peculiar to this time. The girls, dressed in their 
best robes and girdles, with their faces powdered 
and their lips painted, until they resemble the 
peculiar colors seen on a beetle's wings, and 
their hair arranged in the most attractive coiffure, 
are out upon the street playing battledore and 
shuttlecock. They play not only in twos and 
threes, but also in circles. The shuttlecock is a 
small seed, often gilded, stuck round with feathers 
arranged like the petals of a flower. The battle- 
dore is a wooden bat ; one side of which is of bare 
wood, while the other has the raised effigy of some 
popular actor, hero of romance, or singing girl in 
the most ultra-Japanese style of beauty. The girls 
evidently highly appreciate this game, as it gives 
abundant opportunity for the display of personal 
beauty, figure, and dress. Those who fail in the 
game often have their faces marked with ink, or 
a circle drawn round the eyes. The boys sing a 
song that the wind will blow, the girls sing that it 
may be calm so that their shuttlecocks may fly 
straight. The little girls at this time play with a 
ball made of cotton cord, covered elaborately with 
many strands of bright vari-colored silk. 

Inside the house they have games suited not 
only for the daytime, but for the evenings. Many 



56 Child-Life in Japan. 

, '■* .^ 

foreigners have wondered what the Japanese do 

at night, and how the long winter evenings are 
spent. On fair, and especially moonlight nights, 
most of the people .are out of docj^s, and many of 
the children with them. Markets and fairs are 
held regularly at night in Tokio, and in other 
large cities. The foreigner living in a Japanese 
city, even if he were blind, could tell by stepping 
out of doors, whether the weather were clear and 
fine, or disagreeable. On dark and stormy nights 
the stillness of a great city J'ike^Tekio is unbroken 
and very impressive ; but on a fair and moonlight 
night the hum and bustle tell one that the peo- 
ple are out in throngs, and make one feel that it 
is a city that he lives in. 

In most of the castle towns in Japan, it was 
formerly the custom of the people, especially of 
the younger, to assemble on moonlight nights in 
the streets or open spaces near the castle gates, 
and dance a sort of subdued dance, moving round 
in circles and clapping their hands. These dances 
often continued during the entire night, the fol- 
lowing day being largely consumed in sleep. In 
the winter evenings in Japanese households the 
Japanese children amuse themselves with their 
sports, or are amused by their elders, who tell 
them entertaining stories. The Samurai father 
relates to his son Japanese history and heroic 
lore, to fire him with enthusiasm and a love of 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children, ^y 

those achievements which every Samurai youth 
hopes at some day to perform. Then there are 
numerous social entertainments, at which the 
children above a certain age are allowed to be 
present. 

But the games relied on as standard means of 
amusement, and seen especially about New Year, 
are those of cards. In one of these, a large, 
square sheet of paper is laid on the floor. On 
this card are the names and pictures of the fifty- 
three post-stations between old Yedo and Kioto. 
At the place Kioto are put a few coins, or a pile 
of cakes, or some such prizes, and the game is 
played with dice. Each throw advances the 
player toward the goal, and the one arriving first 
obtains the prize. At this time of the year, also, 
the games of what we may call literary cards are 
played a great deal. The Iroha Garuta are small 
cards each containing a proverb. The proverb is 
printed on one card, and the picture illustrating it 
upon another. Each proverb begins with a certain 
one of the fifty Japanese letters, i, ro, ha, etc., and so 
through the syllabary. The children range them- 
selves in a circle, and the cards are shuffled and 
dealt. One is appointed to be reader. Looking 
at his cards he reads the proverb. The player 
who has the picture corresponding to the proverb 
calls out, and the match is made. Those who 

Gartcta^ or karuta, our word "card." as spoken on Japanese lips. 



§S Child-Life in Japan. 

are rid of their cards first, win the game. The 
one holding the last card is the loser. If he be 
a boy, he has his face marked curiously with ink. 
If a girl, she has a paper or wisp of straw stuck 
in her hair. 

The One Verse (from each of the) Hundred 
Poets game consists of two hundred cards, on 
which are inscribed the one hundred stanzas or 
poems so celebrated and known in every house- 
hold. A stanza of Japanese poetry usually con- 
sists of two parts, a first and second, or upper 
and lower clause. The manner of playing the 
game is as follows : The reader reads half the 
stanza on his card, and the player, having the card 
on which the other half is written, calls out, and 
makes a match. Some children become so 
familiar with these poems that they do not need ■ 
to hear the entire half of the stanza read, but 
frequently only the first word. 

The game of Ancient Odes, that named after the 
celebrated Genji (Minamoto) family of the Middle 
Ages, and the Shi Garuta are all card-games of 
a similar nature, but can be thoroughly enjoyed 
only by well-educated Chinese scholars, as the 
references and quotations are written in Chinese 
and require a good knowledge of the Chinese 
and Japanese classics to play them well. To 
boys who are eager to become proficient in Chi- 
nese it often acts as an incentive to be told that 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 59 

they will enjoy these games after certain attain- 
ments in scholarship have been made. Having 
made these attainments, they play the game fre- 
quently, especially during vacation, to impress on 
their minds what they have already learned. 

Two other games are played which may be said 
to have an educational value. They are the 
"Wisdom Boards" and the "Ring of Wisdom." 
The former consists of a number of flat thin pieces 
of wood, cut in many geometrical shapes. Certain 
possible figures are printed on paper as models., 
and the boy tries to form them out of the pieces 
given him. In some cases much time and think- 
ing are required to form the figure. The ring- 
puzzle is made of rings of bamboo or iron, on a 
bar. Boys having a talent for mathematics, or 
those who have a natural capacity to distinguish 
size and form, succeed very well at these games 
and enjoy them. 

The game of Checkers Is played on a raised 
stand or table about six inches in heio:ht. The 
number of " go " or checkers, including black and 
white, is 360. In the Sho-gi, or game of Chess, 
the pieces number 40 in all. Backgammon is also 
a favorite play, and there are several forms of it. 

About the time of old style New Year's Day, 
when the winds of February and March are favor- 
able to the sport, kites are flown, and there are 
few games in which Japanese boys, from the Infant 



6o 



Child-Life in Japan. 



on the back to the full-grown and the over-grown 
boy, take more delight. I have never observed, 
however, as foreign books so often tell us, old men 
flying kites and boys merely looking on. The 
Japanese kites are made of tough paper pasted on 
a frame of bamboo sticks, and are usually of a rec- 
tangular shape. Some of them, however, are 
made to represent children or men, several kinds 
of birds and animals, fans, etc. On the rectangu- 




Getting ready to raise the big Humming Kite with the Sun 

Emblem. 

lar kites are pictures of ancient heroes or beauti- 
ful women, dragons, horses, monsters of various 
kinds, the symbol of the sun, or huge Chinese 
characters. Among the faces most frequently 
seen on these kites are those of the national 
heroes or heroines. Some of the kites are six feet 
square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon 
of whalebone at the top of the kite which vibrates 
in the wind, miaking a loud humming noise. The 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 6i 

boys frequently name their kites Genji or Heiki, 
and each contestant endeavors to destroy that of 
his rival. For this purpose the string for ten or 
twenty feet near the kite end is first covered with 
glue, and then dipped into pounded glass, by which 
the string becomes covered with tiny blades, each 
able to cut quickly and deeply. By getting the 
kite in proper position and suddenly sawing the 
string of his antagonist, the severed kite falls, to 
be reclaimed by the victor. 

The Japanese tops are of several kinds, some 
are made of univalve shells, filled with wax. Those 
intended for contests are made of hard wood, and 
are iron-clad by having a heavy iron ring round 
as a sort of tire. The boys wdnd and throw them 
in a manner somewhat different from ours. The 
object of the player is to damage his adversary's 
top, or to make it cease spinning. The whipping 
top is also known and used. Besides the athletic 
sports of leaping, running, wrestling, slinging, the 
Japanese boys play at blindman's buff, hiding- 
whoop, and with stilts, pop-guns, and blow-guns. 
On stilts they play various games and run races. 

In the northern and western coast provinces, 
where the snow falls to the depth of many feet 
and remains long on the ground, it forms the mate- 
rial of the children's playthings, and the theatre 
of many of their sports. Besides sliding on the 
ice, coasting with sleds, building snow-forts and 



62 



Child-Life in Japan. 



fighting mimic battles with snow-balls, they make 
many kinds of images and imitations of what they 
see and know. In America the boy's snow-man 
is a Paddy with a damaged hat, clay pipe in 
mouth, and the shillelah in his hand. In Japan 
the snow-man is an image of Daruma. Daruma 
was one of the followers of Shaka (Buddha) who, 
by long meditation in a squatting position, lost 
his legs from paralysis and sheer decay. The 




Daruma, the Snow-Image. 



images of Daruma are found by the hundreds in 
toy-shops, as tobacconists' signs, and as the snow- 
men of the boys. Occasionally the figure of Geiho, 
the sage with a forehead and skull so high that a 
ladder was required to reach his pate, or huge cats 
and the peculiar-shaped dogs seen in the toy-shops, 
take the place of Daruma. 

Many of the amusements of the children in- 
doors are mere imitations of the serious affairs of 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 63 

adult life. Boys who have been to the theatre 
come home to imitate the celebrated actors, and 
to extemporize mimic theatricals for themselves. 
Feigned sickness and " playing the doctor," imi- 
tating with ludicrous exactness the pomp and 
solemnity of the real man of pills and powders, 
and the misery of the patient, are the diversions 
of very young children. Dinners, tea-parties, and 
even weddings and funerals, are imitated in Jap- 
anese children's plays. 

Among the ghostly games intended to test the 
courage of, or perhaps to frighten children, are two 
plays called respectively, the "One Hundred 
Stories" and "Soul-Examination." In the former 
play, a company of boys and girls assemble round 
the hibachi, while they or an adult, an aged person 
or a servant, usually relate ghost stories, or tales 
calculated to straighten the hair and make the 
blood crawl. In a distant dark room, a lamp (the 
usual dish of oil) with a wick of one hundred 
strands or piths, is set. At the conclusion of each 
story, the children in turn must go to the dark 
room and remove a strand of the wick. As the 
lamp burns down low the room becomes gloomy 
and dark, and the last boy, it is said, always sees 
a demon, a huge face, or something terrible. In 
" Soul-Examination," a number of boys during 
the day plant some flags in different parts of 
a graveyard under a lonely tree, or by a haunted 



64 Child-Life in Japan. 

hill-side. At night they meet together and tell 
stories about ghosts, goblins, devils, etc., and at 
the conclusion of each tale, when the imagination 
is wrought up, the boys, one at a time, must go 
out in the dark and brin'g back the flags, until all 
are brought in. 

On the third day of the third month is held the 
Doll Festival. This is the day especially devoted 
to the girls, and to them it is the greatest day in 
the year. It has been called in some foreign 
works on Japan, the " Feast of Dolls." Several 
days before the Matsuri the shops are gay with 
the images bought for this occasion, and which 
are on sale only at this time of year. Every re- 
spectable family has a number of these splendidly- 
dressed images, which are from four inches to a 
foot in height, and which accumulate from gen- 
eration to generation. When a daughter is born 
in the house during the previous year, a pair of 
hina or images are purchased for the little girl, 
which she plays with until growm up. When 
she is married her hina are taken with her to her 
husband's house, and she gives them to her chil- 
dren, adding to the stock as her family increases. 
The images are made of wood or enamelled clay. 
They represent the Mikado and his wife; the 
kuge or old Kioto nobles, their wives and daugh- 
ters, the court minstrels, and various personages 
in Japanese mythology and history. A great 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 65 

many other toys, representing all the articles in 
use in a Japanese lady's chamber, the service of 
the eating table, the utensils of the kitchen, trav- 
elling apparatus, etc., some of them very elaborate 
and costly, are also exhibited and played with on 
this day. The girls make offerings of sake and 
dried rice, etc., to the eiifigies of the emperor and 
empress, and then spend the day with toys, mim- 
icking the whole round of Japanese female life, as 
that of child, maiden, wife, mother, and grand- 
mother. In some old Japanese families in which 
I have visited, the display of dolls and images was 
very large and extremely beautiful. 

The greatest day in the year for the boys is on 
the fifth day of the fifth month. On this day is 
celebrated what has been called the " Feast of 
Flags." Previous to the coming of the day, the 
shops display for sale the toys and tokens proper 
to the occasion. These are all of a kind suited 
to young Japanese masculinity. They consist of 
efHgies of heroes and warriors, generals and com- 
manders, soldiers on foot and horse, the genii of 
strength and valor, wrestlers, etc. The toys rep- 
resent the equipments and regalia of a daimio's 
procession, all kinds of things used in w^ar, the 
contents of an arsenal, flags, streamers, banners, 
etc. A set of these toys is bought for every son 
born in the family. Hence in old Japanese fami- 
lies the display on the fifth day of the fifth month 



66 Child-Life in Japan. 

is extensive and brilliant. Besides the display in- 
doors, on a bamboo pole erected outside is hung, 
by a string to the top of the pole, a representation 
of a large fish in paper. The paper being hollow, 
the breeze easily fills out the body of the fish, which 
flaps its tail and fins in a natural manner. One 
may count hundreds of these floating in the air 
over the city. 

The nobori, as the paper fish is called. Is in- 
tended to show that a son has been born during 
the year, or at least that there are sons in the 
family. The fish represented is the carp, which 
is able to swim swiftly against the current and to 
leap over waterfalls. This act of the carp is a 
favorite subject with native artists, and is also 
typical of the young man, especially the young 
Samurai, mounting over all difficulties to success 
and quiet prosperity. 

One favorite game, which has now gone out of 
fashion, was that In which the boys formed them- 
selves into a daimio's procession, having forerun- 
ners, officers, etc., and imitating as far as possible 
the pomp and circumstance of the old daimio's 
train. Another game which was very popular 
represented, in mimic war, the struggles of two 
great noble families (like the red and white 
roses of England). The boys of a town, dis- 
trict, or school, ranged themselves into two par- 
ties, each with flags. Those of the Heiki were 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 67 

white, those of the Genji red. Sometimes every 
boy had a flag, and the object of the contest, which 
was begun at the tap of a gun, was to seize the 
flags of the enemy. The party securing the 
greatest number of flags won the victory. In 
other cases the flags were fastened on the back 
of each contestant, who was armed with a bam- 
boo for a sword, and who had fastened on a pad 
over his head a flat round piece of earthenware, 
so that a party of them looked not unhke the fac- 
ulty of a college. Often these parties of boys 
numbered several hundred, and were marshalled 
in squadrons as in a battle. At a given signal 
the battle commenced, the object being to break 
the earthen disk on the head of the enemy. The 
contest was usually very exciting. Whoever had 
his earthen disk demolished had to retire from 
the field. The party having the greatest number 
of broken disks, indicative of cloven skulls, were 
declared the losers. This game has been forbid- 
den by the Government as being too severe and 
cruel. Boys were often injured in it. 

There are many other games which we simply 
mention without describing. There are three 
games played by the hands, which every observ- 
ant foreigner long resident in Japan must have 
seen played, as men and women seem to enjoy 
them as much as children. In the Stone game, 
a stone, a pair of scissors, and a wrapping- 



68 Child-Life in Japan. 

cloth are represented. The stone signifies the 
clenched fist, the parted fore and middle fingers 
the scissors, and the curved forefinger and 
thumb the cloth. The scissors can cut the 
cloth, but not the stone, but the cloth can wrap 
the stone. The two players sit opposite each other 
at play, throwing out their hands so as to repre- 
sent either of the three things, and win, lose, or 
draw, as the case may be. 

In the Fox game, the fox, man, and gun are 
the figures. The gun kills the fox, but the fox 
deceives the man, and the gun is useless with- 
out the man. In the third game, five or six boys 
represent the various grades of rank, from the 
peasant up to the great daimios or shogun. By 
superior address and skill in the game the peasant 
rises to the highest rank, or the man of highest 
rank is degraded. 

From the nature of the Japanese language, in 
which a single word or sound may have a great 
many significations, riddles and puns are of extraor- 
dinary frequency. I do not know of any published 
collection of riddles, but every Japanese boy has 
a good stock of them on hand. There are few 
Japanese works of light, and perhaps of serious, 
literature, in which puns do not continually recun 
The popular songs and poems are largely plays 
on words. There are also several puzzles played 
with sticks, founded upon the shape of certain 



Games and Sports of Japanese Children. 69 

Chinese characters. As for the short and simple 
story-books, song-books, nursery rhymes, lullabys, 
and what for want of a better name may be styled 
Mother Goose Literature, they are as plentiful as 
with us, but they have a very strongly character- 
istic Japanese flavor, both in style and matter. 

It is curious that the game of foot-ball seems 
to have been confined to the courtiers of the 
Mikado's court, where there were regular in- 
structors of the game. In the games of Pussy 
wants a Corner and Prisoner's Base, the Oni, 
or devil, takes the place of Puss or the officer. 

I have not mentioned all the games and sports 
of Japanese children, but enough has been said 
to show their general character. In general they 
seem to be natural, sensible, and in every sense 
beneficial. Their immediate or remote effects, 
next to that of amusement, are either educational, 
or hygienic. Some teach history, some geogra- 
phy, some excellent sentiments or good language. 
Others inculcate reverence and obedience to the 
elder brother or sister, to parents or to the 
emperor, or stimulate the manly virtues of cour- 
age and contempt for pain. The study of the 
subject leads one to respect more highly, rather 
than otherwise, the Japanese people for being 
such affectionate fathers and mothers, and for 
having such natural and docile children. The 
character of the children's plays and their encour- 



Jo Child-Life in Japan. 

agement by the parents has, I think, much to do 
with that frankness, affection, and obedience on 
the side of the children, and that kindness and 
sympathy on the side of the parents, which are 
so noticeable in Japan, and which is one of the 
many good points of Japanese life and character. 



i 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



Supplementary Reading 

A Classi_fted L ist/or all Grades. 

GRADE I. Bass's The Beginner's Reader 

Badlam's Primer .... 

Fuller's Illustrated Primer 

Griel's Glimpses of Nature for Little Folks 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 

Regal's Lessons for Little Readers 

GRADE IL Warren's From September to June with Nature 

Badlam's First Reader 

Bass's Stories of Plant Life 

Heart of Oak Readers, Book I 

Snedden's Docas, the Indian Boy 

Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature, Readers No. 
GRADE III. Heart of Oak Readers, Book II 

Pratt's America's Story, Beginner's Book 

Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 

Miller's My Saturday Bird Class . 

Firth's Stories of Old Greece 

Bass's Stories of Animal life 

Spear's Leaves and Flowers 

GRADE IV, Bass's Stories of Pioneer Life 
Brown's Alice and Tom 
Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 
Pratt's America's Story — Discoverers and Explorers 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 3 

GRADE V. Bull's Fridtjof Nansen . 
Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book III . 
Pratt's America's Story — The Earlier Colonies . 
Kupfer's Stories of Long Ago 

GRADE VI, Starr's Strange Peoples . 

Bull's Fridtjof Nansen .... 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV . 
Pratt's America's Story — The Colonial Period . 
Dole's The Young Citizen . . 

GRADE VII. Starr's American Indians 
Penniman's School Poetry Book . 

Pratt's America's Story — The Revolution and the Republic 
Eckstorm's The Bird Book 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book TV . 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 4 

GRADES VIII and IX. Heart of Oak Readers, Book V 
Heart of Oak Readers, Book VI . 
Dole's The American Citizen 
Shaler's First Book in Geology (boards) 
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley . 



•as 

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•*S 
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Descriptive circulars sent free on request. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago 



Heath's Home and School ClassicSe 



FOR GRADES I AND II. 

Mother Goose : A Book of Nursery Rhymes, arranged by C. Welsh. In two parts. Illus 
trated by Clara E. Atwood. Paper, each part, lo cents ; cloth, two parts bound in one, 
30 cents. 

Craik'S So Fat and Mew Mew. Introduction by Lucy M. Wheelock. Illustrated by 
C. M. Howard. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Six Nursery Classics : The House That Jack Built ; Mother Hubbard ; Cock Robin ; 
The Old Woman and Her Pig ; Dame Wiggins of Lee, and the Three Bears. Edited 
by M. V. O'Shea. Illustrated by Ernest Fosbery. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

FOR GRADES II AND III. 

Crib and Fly : A Tale of Two Terriers. Edited by Charles F. Dole. Illustrated by 
Gwendoline Sandham. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Goody Two Shoes. Attributed to Oliver Goldsmith. Edited by Charles Welsh. With 
twenty-eight illustrations after the wood-cuts in the original edition of 1765, Paper, 
10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Segur'S The Story of a Donkey. Translated by C. Welsh. Edited by Charles F. Dole. 
Illustiated by E. H. Saunders. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

FOR GRADES III AND IV. 

Trimmer's The History of the Robins. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated 
by C. M. Howard. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Aiken and Barbauld's Eyes and No Eyes, and Other Stories. Edited by M. V. O'Shea. 

Illustrated by H. P. Barnes and C. M. Howard. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Edgeworth's Waste Not, Want Not, and Other Stories. Edited by M. V. O'Shea. 
Illustrated by W. P. Bodwell. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Ruskin's The King of the Golden River. Edited by M. V. O'Shea. Illustrated by 
Sears Gallagher, Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Browne's The Wonderful Chair and The Tales It Told. Edited by M. V. O'Shea. 
Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood after Mrs. Seymour Lucas. In two parts. Paper, each 
part, 10 cents ; cloth, two parts bound in one, 30 cents. 

FOR GRADES IV AND V. 

Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring. A Fairy Tale. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. 
Illustrations by Thackeray. Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 

Ingelow's Three Fairy Stories. Edited by Charles F. Dole. Illustrated by E. Ripley. 

Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Ayrton'S Child Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories. Edited by William Elliot 
Griffis. Illustrated by Japanese Artists. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Ewing'S Jackanapes. Edited by W. P. Trent. Illustrated by Josephine Bruce. Paper, 
10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

MulOCh'S The Little Lame Prince. Preface by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. Illus- 
trated by Miss E. B. Barry. In two parts. Paper, each part, 10 cents ; cloth, two parts 
bound in one, 30 cents. 

(OVHR.) 



Heath*s Home and Schoof Classics — Continued* 



FOR GRADES V AND VI. 

Lamb's The Adventures of Ulysses. Edited by W. P. Trent Illustrations after Flax- 
man. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. 

Gulliver's Travels. I. A Voyage to Lilliput. II. A Voyage to Brobdingnag. Edited 
by T. M. Balliet. Fully illustrated, lu two parts. Paper, each part, 15 cents ; cloth, 
two parts bound in one, 30 cents. 

Ewing's The Story of a Short Life. Edited by T. M. Balliet. Illustrated by A. F 

Schmitt. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 2ocents 

Tales From the Travels of Baron Munchausen. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Illus- 
trated by K. P. Barnes after Dore. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

Muloch's The Little Lame Prince. Preface bv Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. Illus- 
trated by Miss E. B. Barry. In two parts. Paper, each part, 10 cents ; cloth, two parts 
bound in one, 30 cents. 

FOR GRADES VI AND VII. 

Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare. Introduction by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. 
Illustrated by Homer W. Colby after Pille. In three parts. Paper, each part, 15 
cents ; cloth, three parts bound in one, 40 cents. 

Martineau's The Crofton Boys. Edited by William Elliot Griffis. Illustrated by A. F. 
Schm'tt. Cloth, 30 cents. 

Motlsy'S The Siege of Leyden. Edited by William Elliot Griffis. With nineteen illustra- 
tions from old prints and photographs, and a map. Paper, 10 cents; cloth, 2c cents. 

Brown's Rab and His Friends and Other Stories of Dogs. Edited by T. M. Balliet. 
Illustrated by David L. Munroe after Sir Noel Paton, Mrs. Blackburn, George Hardy, 
and Lumb Stocks. Paper, 10 cents ; cloth, 20 cents. 

FOR GRADES VII, VIII AND IX. 

Hamerton'S Chapters on Animals : Dogs, Cats and Horses. Edited by W. p. Trent. 
Illustrated after Sir E. Landseer, Sir John Millais, Rosa Bonheur, E. Van Muyden, 
Veyrassat, J. L. Gerome, K. Bodmer, etc. Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 

Irving'S Dolph Heyliger. Edited by G. H. Browne. Illustrated by H. P. Barnes. 
Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 

Shakespeare's The Tempest. Edited by Sarah W. Hiestand. Illustrations after Retzch 
and the Chandos portrait. Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Edited by Sarah W. Hiestand. Illus- 
trations after Smirke and the Droeshout portrait. Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 

Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Edited by Sarah W. Hiestand. Illustrations 

after Smirke, Creswick and Leslie. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. 
Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Edited by Sarah W. Hiestand. Illustrations after 

Leslie, Wheatley, and Wright. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. 
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated. In four parts. 

Paper, each part, 15 cents; cloth, four parts bound in one, 60 cents. 
Jordan's True Tales of Birds and Beasts. By David Starr Jordan. Illustrated by Mary 

H. Wellman. Cloth, 40 cents. 
FouqutJ'o Undine. Introduction by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. Illustrations after 

Julius Hoppner. Cloth, 30 cents. 
Melville'? Typee: Life in the South Seas. Introduction by W. P. Trent. Illustrated by 

H. W. Moore. Cloth, 45 cents. 



Elementary Mathematics 



Atwood's Complete Graded Arithmetic. New edition. Work for each grade from 
third to eighth inclusive, bound in a separate book. Six books. Each, ,25 cts. 
Old edition: Part I, 30 cts. ; Part \l, 65 cts. 

Badlam's Aids to Number. Teacher's edition — First series, Nos. i to 10, 40 cts. ; 
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Bigelow and Boyden's Primary Number Manual. For teachers, 25 cts. 

Branson's Methods of Teaching Arithmetic. 15 cts. 

Hanus's Geometry in the Grammar Schools. An essay, with outline of work for 

the last three years of the grammar school. 25 cts. 

Heath's Beginner's Arithmetic. For first and second years. 30 cts. 

Heath's Primary Arithmetic. Illustrated in color. 35 cts. 

Heath's Complete Practical Arithmetic. 65 cts. 

Howland's Drill Cards. For middle grades. Each, 3 cts. ; per hundred, $2.40. 

Hunt's Geometry for Grammar Schools. The definitions and elementary con- 
cepts taught concretely. 30 cts. 

Joy's Arithmetic Without a Pencil. Mental Arithmetic. 35 cts. 

Pierce's Review Number Cards. Two cards, for second and third year pupils. 
Each, 3 cts. ; per hundred, $2.40. 

Safford's Mathematical Teaching. A monograph, with applications. 25 cts. 

Siefert's Principles of Arithmetic. A teacher's guide. 75 cts. 

Sloane's Practical Lessons in Fractions. 25 cts. Set of six fraction cards, for 

pupils to cut. 10 cts. 

Sutton and Bruce's Arithmetics. Lower, 35 cts. ; Higher, 60 cts. 

The New Arithmetic. By 300 teachers. Little theory and much practice. An 
excellent review book. 65 cts. 

"Walsh's New Arithmetics. New Primary, 30 cts. New Grammar School, 65 cts. 
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Walsh's Arithmetics. Tivo Book Scries — Primary, 30 cts. ; Grammar School, 65 
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Walsh's Algebra and Geometry for Grammar Grades. 15 cts. 

Watson and White's Arithmetics. Primary, 35 cts. Intermediate, 45 cts. 

Complete, in preparation. 
Wells and Gerrish's Beginner's Algebra. For grammar grades. 50 cts. 
White's Arithmetics. Two Years with Number, 35 cts. Junior Arithmetic, 45 

cts. Senior Arithmetic, 65 cts. 

For advanced ivorks see our list of hooks in Mathematics. 

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Elementary Science 



Austin's Observation Blanks in Mineralogy. Detailed studies of 35 minerals. 
35 cents. 

Bailey's Grammar School Physics. Practical lessons with simple experiments 
that may be performed in the ordinary schoolroom. 50 cents. 

Ballard's The World of Matter. Simple studies in chemistry and mineralogy ; for 
use as a textbook or as a guide to the teacher in giving object lessons. $1.00. 

Brown's Good Health for Girls and Boys. Physiology and hygiene for interme- 
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Brown's Health in the Home. Illustrated. 50 cents. 

Clark's Practical Methods in Microscopy. Gives in detail descriptions of methods 
that will lead the careful worker to successful results. lUus. $1.60. 

Clarke's Astronomical Lantern. Intended to familiarize students with the constel- 
lations by comparing them with facsimiles on the lantern face. With seventeen 
slides, giving twenty-two constellations. $4.50. 

Clarke's How to Find the Stars. Accompanies the above and helps to an acquaint- 
ance with the constellations. Paper. 15 cents. 

Colton's Elementary Physiology and Hygiene. For grammar grades. 317 pages. 
Illustrated. 60 cents. 

Eckstorm's The Bird Book. The natural history of birds, with directions for ob- 
servation and suggestions for study. 301 pages. Illustrated. 60 cents. 

Guides for Science Teaching. Teachers' aids for instruction in Natural History. 
I. Hyatt's .\bout Pebbles. 26 pages. Paper. 10 cts. 
II. Goodale's A Few Common Plants. 61 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 

III. Hyatt's Commercial and other Sponges. Illustrated. 43 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 

IV. Agassiz's First Lesson in Natural History. Illus. 64 pages. Paper. 25 cts. 
V. Hyatt's Corals and Echinoderms. Illustrated. 32 pages. Paper. 30 cts. 

VI. Hyatt's Mollusca. Illustrated. 65 pages. Paper. 30 cts. 
VII. Hyatt's Worms and Crustacea. Illustrated. 68 pages. Paper, 30 cts. 
XII. Crosby's Common Alinerals and Rocks. Illustrated. 200 pages. Paper, 40 cts. 

Cloth, 60 cts. 
XIII. Richards's First Lessons in Minerals. 50 pages. Paper. 10 cts. 
XIV. Bowditch's Physiology. 58 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 
XV. Clapp's 36 Observation Lessons in Minerals. 80 pages. Paper, 30 cts. 
XVI. Phenix's Lessons in Chemistry. 20 cts. 

Pupils' Note-book to accompany No. 15. 10 cts. 
Hoag's Health Studies. Practical hygiene for grammar grades. Cloth. Illus- 
trated. 75 cents. 
Ric3'3 Science Teaching in the School. With a course of instruction in science 

for the lower grades. 46 pages. Paper. 25 cents. 
Ric'.ts's Natural History Object Lessons. Information on plants and their prod- 
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Ricks's Object Lessons and How to Give Them. — Vol. II. Lessons on elemen- 

tar\- science for grammar and intermediate grades. 90 cents. 
Scott'3 Nature Study and the Child. A manual for teachers, with outlines of les- 
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Sever's Elements of Agriculture. For grammar grades. Illustrated. 50 cents. 
Shaler's First Book in Geology. A helpful introduction to the study of modern 

textbooks in geography. Illustrated. Cloth, 60 cents. Boards, 45 cents. 
Spear's Leaves and Flowers. An elementary botany for pupils under twelve. 

Illustrated. 25 cents. 
Weed's Farm Friends and Farm Foes. An elementary textbook on weeds and 

insects. Cloth. Illustrated. 90 cents. 
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Reader, No. 4. Elementary lessons in 
geology, astronomy, world life, etc. Illustrated. 50 cents. 

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Allen and Hawkins's School Course in English. Book I, 35 cts. ; Book II, 50 ctSo 

Allen's School Grammar of the English Language. A clear, concise, adequate 

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Badlam's Suggestive Lessons in Language and Reading. A manual for primary 

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Badlam's Suggestive Lessons in Language. Being Part I and Appendix of Sug- 
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Benson's Practical Speller. Contains nearly 13,000 words. Part 1,261 Lessons, 
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Benson and Glenn's Speller and Definer. 700 spelling and defining lists. 30 cts. 

Branson's Methods in Reading. With a chapter on spelling. 15 cents. 

Buckbee's Primary Word Book. Drills in articulation and in phonics. 25 cents. 

Clapp and Huston's Composition Work in Grammar Grades. 15 cents. 

Fuller's Phonetic Drill Charts. Exercises in elementary sounds. Per set (3) 10 cts. 

Haaren's Word and Sentence Book. A language speller. Book I, 20 cents ; Book 
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Hall's How to Teach Reading. Also discusses what children should read. 25 cts. 

Harrington's Course for Non-English Speaking People. Book I, 25 cents ; Book 
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Harris's Spiral Course in English. Book I, 35 cents ; Book II, 60 cents. 

Heath's Graded Spelling Book. 20 cents. 

Hyde's Two-Book Course in English, Book L Practical lessons in the correct use 
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Hyde's Two-Book Course in English, Book II. A carefully graded course of les- 
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Hyde's Practical Lessons in English. Book I, 35 cents ; Book II, 50 cents. Book 

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Hyde's Practical English Grammar. 50 cents. 
Hyde's Derivation of Words. With exercises on prefixes, suffixes, and stems. 10 cts. 

MacEwan's The Essentials of the English Sentence. A compendious manual for 
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Mathew's Outline of English Grammar. With Selections for Practice. *]o cents. 

Penniman's New Practical Speller. Contains 6500 words. 20 cents. 

Penniman's Common Words Difficult to Spell. Contains 3500 words. 20 cents 

Penniman's Prose Dictation Exercises. 25 cents. 

Phillip's History and Literature in Grammar Grades. 15 cents, 

Sever's Progressive Speller. Gives spelling, pronunciation, definition and use of 
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Smith's Studies in Nature, and Language Lessons. A combination of object 
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Spalding's Problem of Elementary Composition. Practical suggestions for work 
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History 



Allen's History Topics. Covers Ancient, Modem, and American history and gives an 
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Allen's Topical Outline of English History. Including references for literature. Boards, 
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Boutwell's The Constitution of the United States at the End of the First Century. 
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Fisher's Select Bibliography of Ecclesiastical History. An annotated list of the most 
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Flickinger's Civil Government: as Developed in the States and the United States. 
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Hall's Method of Teaching History. " its excellence and helpfulness ought to secure it 
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Pratt's America's Story for America's Children. A series of history readers for ele- 
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I. The Beginner's Book. Cloth. 60 illustrations. 132 pages. 35 cents. 
II. Discoverers and Explorers: 1000 to 1609. Cloth. 152 pages. 52 illus. 40 cents. 
III. The Earlier Colonies: 1601 to 1733. Cloth. 160 pages. Illus. 40 cents. 
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V. The Revolution and the Republic. Cloth. Illus. 160 pages. 40 cents. 

Sheldon's American History. Follows the "seminary " or laboratory plan. "By it the 
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Teacher's Manual to Sheldon's American History. 60 cents. 

Sheldon's General History. For high schools and colleges. The only general history 
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Sheldon's Greek and Roman History. Contains the first 250 pages of the General 
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Sheldon-Barnes's Studies in Historical Method. Suggestive studies for teachers and 
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Shumway's A Day in Ancient Rome. With 59 illustrations. Should find a place as a 
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Thomas's Elementary History of the United States. For younger grades. Maps and 
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Thomas's History of the United States. Revised and rewritten. Edition of 1901. For 
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Wilson's Compendium of United States and Contemporary History, For schools and 
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Wilson's The State. Elements of Historical and Practical Politics. A book on the 
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Thompson's ^Esthetic Series of Drawing. This series includes the study of 

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Thompson's Educational and Industrial Drawing. 

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Anthony's Mechanical Drawing. 98 pages of text, and 32 folding plates. ^1.50. 
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Johnson's Lessons in Needlework. Gives, with illustrations, full directions for 
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Lunt's Brashwork for Kindergarten and Primary Schools. Eighteen lesson 

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REI^ISED AND ILLUSTRATED 



The Heart of Oak Books 

A Collection of Traditional Rhymes and Stories for 
Children, and of Masterpieces of Poetry and Prose 
for Use at Home and at School, chosen with special 
reference to the cultiv^ation of the imagination and 
the development of a taste for good reading. 

EDITED BY 

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 



Book I. 
Book II. 
Book III. 

Book IV. 

Book V. 

Book VI. 
Book VII. 



Rhymes, Jingles and Fables. For first reader classes, 
by Frank T. Merrill. 128 pages. 25 cents. 



Illustrated 



Fables and Nursery Tales. For second reader classes. Illustrated 
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Fairy Tales, Ballads and Poems. For third reader classes. With 
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Fairy Stories and Classic Tales of Adventure. For fourth reader 
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Masterpieces of Literature. With illustrations after Horace Vernet, 
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Masterpieces of Literature. With illustrations after J. M. W. Tur- 
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BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON 



THE HEATH READERS 



A new series, that excels in its 

1. Interesting and well graded lessons. 

2. Masterpieces of English and American literature. 

3. Beautiful and appropriate illustrations. 

4. Clear and legible printing. 

5. Durable and handsome binding. 

6. Adaptation to the needs of modern schools. 



The Heath Readers enable teachers, whether they 
have much or little knowledge of the art, to teach children to 
read intelligently and to read aloud intelligibly. They do this 
without waste of time or effort, and at the same time that the 
books aid pupils in acquiring skill in reading, they present 
material which is in itself worth reading. 



The purpose of the Heath Readers is, first, to enable 
beginners to master the mechanical difficulties of reading 
successfully and in the shortest time ; second^ to develop the 
imagination and cultivate a taste for the best literature ; 
third^ to appeal to those motives that lead to right conduct, 
industry, courage, patriotism, and loyalty to duty. The larger 
purpose is, briefly, to aid in developing an appreciation of 
that which is of most worth in life and literature. 



The series contains seven books, as follows: 



Primer, 128 pages, 25 cents. 
First Reader, 130 pages, 25 cents. 
Second Reader, 176 pages, 35 cents. 
Third Reader, 256 pages, 40 cents. 



Fourth Rtader, 320 pages, 45 cents. 
I'ifih Reader, 352 pages, 50 cents. 
Sixth Reader, 352 pagf^^, 50 cents. 



Descriptive circulars sent free 07i request. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, NewYork, Chicago 



